


Your Fire, Your Soul

by lebearpolar



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 07:29:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14911025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lebearpolar/pseuds/lebearpolar
Summary: Dean tries not to think too closely about the monsters that his father keeps. If he looks them in the eye, or speaks to them, they cease to be faceless terrors and become instead… people. People who’ve maimed and murdered humans, to be sure, but people nevertheless. Dean can’t let himself think that way. It’s easier to think of John’s prisoners as one many-limbed, faceless, fanged entity.But when he reaches the last cell in the barn, the largest and most secure, and glimpses for the second time the creature crouching just beyond the bars, Dean knows that he won’t be able to distance himself from this one the way he does with the others. This one is different.The angel looks up.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2018 Dean/Cas Reverse Bang. I had an absolute blast writing this fic! Huge thanks to the incredibly talented [dragonpressgraphics](https://dragonpressgraphics.tumblr.com), whose gorgeous artwork sparked inspiration literally the moment I saw it. Check out her art masterpost [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14916113).
> 
>   
> 

Dean knows the drill. He’s done this a million times—which, thinking about it, is actually kind of horrifying. He’s twenty-two, barely even old enough to drink (legally, at least), and here he is, leaning back on his stool and playing with his phone like all of this is totally normal, like waiting for your dad to bring a monster home to cage up is something that every millennial does on a typical Saturday night.

It wasn’t always like this. When Mary was alive, things were—well, not normal exactly, but the Winchester version of normal. Ever since Dean can remember, his parents would leave for days, sometimes even weeks at a time, and come back with some cuts and bruises, maybe a cracked rib or two, and always, _always_ a story to tell.

Dean’s parents hunted monsters. He knew this, he had always known this, because before Dean had even learned to read, he had learned to fear the monster under the bed, the creature in the closet. You _should_ be afraid of the dark, John and Mary taught him, because you never could know what foul beast might be lurking in the shadows.

While the other kids in his neighborhood were playing catch with their fathers and capture-the-flag with their friends, Dean was busy learning how to wield a hunting knife, how to tell the difference between a rugaru and a wendigo, how to draw a Devil’s Trap properly.

For the first ten years of Dean’s life, nothing changed: his parents left, he got shipped off to stay with one of their friends (Bobby, or Jody, or even Rufus), his parents came back—maybe a little worse for wear, but always healthy and whole and energized with the thrill of a successful hunt—and they went back to their little house in the suburbs and Dean went back to school and to studying his father’s journal and his mother’s ancient texts, and they were a family again. Normal, at least as far as Dean knew. This life was, after all, all he had ever known.

Everything changed after Sam was born. Not because of Sam, who slotted into their little family perfectly the moment he arrived, the puzzle piece they hadn’t even known they were missing. And not because Mary took a break from hunting for the first six months of Sam’s life—that, as far as Dean was concerned, was fantastic, to have his mom around every single day.

It happened during Mary’s first hunt after her maternity leave. Dean can still remember the morning she left, the way the rising sun set her golden hair aglow, her face gleaming with the anticipation of a good hunt. She kissed Sam goodbye, gathered Dean into a tight hug, and told him that she loved him. Dean can still hear them sometimes just as he’s falling asleep, the last words that his mother ever said to him.

John was different after that. He had always been gruff, a little rough around the edges, but Mary had always smoothed those edges; without her pacifying presence, John became harder, more severe. He gave Dean a gun and taught him to shoot it. And then, when Dean was twelve, John started taking him on hunting trips.

The Winchesters left their little house in the suburbs, uprooting in favor of a sprawling ranch upstate, the main attraction of which, Dean soon discovered, was a historic horse barn located right on the property. Three-year-old Sam asked his father if they were getting horses. Dean knew better.

A car engine roars in the distance, and Dean glances up from his phone. The wind is buffeting the sides of the barn, but he’s pretty sure he can hear his father’s SUV crunching its way up the gravel driveway. Dean pockets his phone and stands up. He pulls his pistol from his waistband and does a quick press check, just to calm his nerves. Sure, he knows the drill—he could do a creature intake in his sleep at this point—but the thing that John’s bringing home to the menagerie today isn’t your typical monster.

Dean isn’t even sure _what_ it is; John was deliberately vague when they spoke on the phone earlier. But it sounds to Dean like the creature John’s captured this time is one that he’s never caught or killed before—that perhaps _no one_ has ever caught or killed before.

The glare of headlights seeps through the barn door, and a moment later the car engine outside dies. Dean hears men’s voices, the scraping of several booted feet on gravel. The barn door creaks open. Dean backs up and flicks on the overhead light.

Two men are making their way inside, holding a third man propped up between them, his feet dragging on the floor. The trio steps into the light: Dean recognizes his father, John, on the left; one of his father’s crotchety hunting friends, Elkins, on the right; and in the middle—

Dean can’t help himself: he gasps. The unconscious man before him looks nondescript enough at first glance—a youngish face framed by untidy black hair, a cheap suit worn under a ratty trench coat—but as the man is pulled all the way into the light, Dean sees the reason that John was so cagey on the phone, the reason for all the extra firepower he brought on this hunting trip. This man has _wings_.

Massive, silver-blue wings that sprout from the man’s shoulders and stretch all the way to the floor, the wingtips dragging in the dirt and dust. Dean can only stare and splutter as his father and Elkins drag the winged man across the floor. As they pass him, Dean sees that the man’s wrists are shackled in thick iron manacles etched all over with runes he’s never seen before.

“You prepped his cell?” John grunts as he passes.

“I—yeah,” Dean says, trailing after the others, his mouth still agape. “Dad, what—what is it?”

“In a minute. Gotta get him in the cage first.”

Dean waits as John and Elkins throw the winged man into the biggest, most secure cell. It’s empty save for a sprinkling of hay and a single bowl of water.

The other cells—all former horse stalls that John long since reinforced with iron, locks, and hundreds of sigils—are silent; Dean’s other job this evening was to sedate their other monster guests before John returned with the new arrival.

Elkins mutters something to John and shakes his hand, nods cursorily at Dean, and departs without another word. John, looking exhausted and suddenly older than his years, beckons Dean wordlessly into the tack room that now serves as his office.

A great map of the United States hangs on the wall behind John’s desk, colored pushpins scattered across the country representing a host of known and unknown monsters. John collapses into his desk chair. Dean stands behind the chair in front of John’s desk but doesn’t sit, instead gripping the back of it with white knuckles.

“Dad,” he says again. “What is it?”

He already knows the answer—what else could it be, with massive wings like those? But they’re a myth, a legend, a mere fantasy invented thousands of years ago to placate the masses… or at least that’s what Dean’s always thought, up until tonight.

John scrubs a hand over his face and speaks, confirming what Dean already knew, although he still can’t imagine how it can be possible: “It’s an angel.” 

* * *

“An angel? A real, live, actual angel?” Sam peppers Dean with questions in between bites of pasta.

“For the tenth time, _yes_ ,” says Dean. “Eat your broccoli, Sammy, I can see you pushing it off to the side.”

Sam makes a face, but pops a piece of broccoli into his mouth. “And he has wings?” he asks. “Does he have a halo?”

“Yes on the wings, no on the halo,” says Dean, choking down his own broccoli. He thinks the stuff is disgusting, personally, but the only way he can get Sam to eat healthy foods is to eat them right along with him. And, granted, tonight’s hastily thrown-together pasta dish is not his best work. It’s hard to cook when all his thoughts are stuck in the menagerie with the angel.

It’s been hours since John got back to the ranch, but he has yet to make an appearance at the house, not even to say hello to Sam. Dean both wants and doesn’t want to know what his dad is doing out there with—or to—the angel. When Dean left, the creature was still unconscious.

“Where did Dad get it? _Why_ did Dad get it?” Sam is asking now, swinging his legs back and forth beneath the table.

Dean shrugs. “I couldn’t get anything out of him.”

Unlike Dean, John has always kept Sam in the dark about hunting—or at least, he’s tried to. But a horse barn full of monster prisoners located just steps from your front door is pretty hard to keep secret from anyone, much less a kid as relentlessly curious as Sam’s always been.

Dean caved and told him the truth—about hunting, the menagerie, everything—a good five years ago now, as soon as he figured Sam was mature enough not to completely freak out. Now, at thirteen, Sam knows everything that Dean knows (although he still feigns partial ignorance whenever John is in earshot.)

Sometimes it squeezes Dean’s heart a little, the fact that his father works so hard to preserve Sam’s youthful innocence. When Dean was Sam’s age, he was already out in the field, risking life and limb to help his father take down shapeshifters and wraiths. Sam isn’t even allowed out of the house past ten o’clock at night.

“Do angels really come from Heaven?” Sam asks as he and Dean are cleaning up the kitchen.

Dean shrugs. “Dunno, Sammy.”

“I always thought angels were the good guys,” Sam continues, undeterred. “If angels are the good guys, why did Dad catch one? Do you think it did a bad thing? Do you think it killed someone?”

“I don’t know,” Dean says again. He’s been asking himself the same questions.

* * *

Late that evening, after Sam’s already gone to bed, Dean goes out to the menagerie to feed the monsters.

This is one of Dean’s jobs, one of the few hunting-related tasks that John trusts him to carry out all by himself. Dean doesn’t get to sit in on John’s interrogation sessions (although he’s never had much desire to; monsters or not, John’s methods of interrogation have always made Dean a little sick to his stomach), and he doesn’t get to know why they were brought here in in the first place, nor when or why John decides to dispatch them—but he does get to feed them. Lucky him.

Dean walks down the corridor between the cells, tossing a deer heart here, a water bottle of blood there—just enough to keep the creatures conscious, and alert enough to be receptive to John’s eventual questions. Dean tries not to think too closely about the monsters that his father keeps. If he looks them in the eye, or speaks to them, they cease to be faceless terrors and become instead… people. People who’ve maimed and murdered humans, to be sure, but people nevertheless.

Dean can’t let himself think that way. It’s easier to think of John’s prisoners as one many-limbed, faceless, fanged entity.

But when he reaches the last cell in the barn, the largest and most secure, and glimpses for the second time the creature crouching just beyond the bars, Dean knows that he won’t be able to distance himself from this one the way he does with the others. This one is different.

The angel looks up.

Dean can’t tear his eyes away. The angel’s outward appearance, like Dean observed before, is unremarkable. But there is an energy thrumming through him, an electric current that Dean can feel even through four inches of magically-reinforced iron. Behind the angel’s eyes, Dean imagines he can see a blue fire burning, or perhaps the crackle of a lightning bolt, just barely contained.

The feeling both terrifies and enthralls him in equal measure.

“What’s your name?” he hears himself asking, his hands unconsciously gripping the bars of the angel’s cell.

The angel snorts. He is crouched awkwardly on the filthy floor, his manacled hands attached to a heavy metal chain with barely enough give to allow him to stand up—not that he looks like he has the energy to stand up anytime soon.

But despite his captivity, and his physical position of complete powerlessness, the angel doesn’t seem defeated to Dean—in fact, he appears to be just the opposite. He pulls himself into a sitting position and glares at Dean with those burning blue eyes. His gaze narrows.

“Who are you?” he asks. “What is this place?” His voice is low, gravelly. Dean feels like it reverberates through his very bones. He shivers.

“Dean Winchester,” he responds without hesitation. It never even occurs to him to lie. “And this is—well, my dad calls it the menagerie. It’s sort of a prison for supernatural creatures.”

“And what, pray tell, have I done to deserve this imprisonment?” the angel asks, his voice dripping with scorn.

“I don’t know,” Dean says honestly.

The angel harrumphs. “What, you aren’t privy to your father’s grand plans?”

“Not usually, no,” says Dean.

The angel stares at him, his eyes narrowed. “My name is no business of yours,” he says finally. “Leave me to my suffering, young Winchester.” He curls his wings over himself and settles onto the cold hard floor, turning away from Dean. “I have nothing to say to you.”

* * *

“What’s your name?” Dean asks again. He’s asked the angel this same question night after night, and every time he receives a sarcastic, sneering lack of a response.

Tonight, though. Tonight is different.

The angel is half-lying down on the floor, his head close to the ground. There is a little puddle of blood by his head, as though he’s been spitting it up. And his wings—the sight of the angel’s wings makes Dean’s heart clench. The beautiful blue wings are mangled, bloody, many of the feathers broken or missing altogether.

Dean knows that John has been meeting with the angel almost every day, grilling him for information—information on what, however, Dean doesn’t know.

At Dean’s words, the angel lifts his head. It looks painful.

“You again,” he says, spitting out a little more blood. He rolls over so that he’s sitting mostly upright. He watches Dean carefully, his bright blue eyes still burning with that cold fire that Dean sensed before—albeit a much weaker fire now. “Why do you keep bothering me? You’re like an insect that I just—can’t—reach—”

He stretches a hand out towards the bars and Dean takes an involuntary step backwards. The angel chuckles. “There’s nothing I can do to you, human,” he says, sounding resigned. “I once commanded armies, and now look at me. Captured by a human, ogled at by his idiot son every night… no wonder my brothers and sisters abandoned me.”

“Your family abandoned you?” Dean can’t help himself. He’s endlessly fascinated by the angel, still riveted by the idea that angels even _exist_ in the first place.

“Yes, they abandoned me,” the angel says. He’s closed his eyes now, as though he can’t bear to look at Dean any longer. “I made a grievous mistake, and they left me for dead. How do you think your father was able to capture me? If I hadn’t been in my lowest possible state, he’d never have succeeded.”

“Tell me your name,” Dean insists. “I need to know what to call you.”

“Come back tomorrow,” the angel says without opening his eyes. “If I’m in a good mood, perhaps I’ll tell you.”

* * *

Tuesday is taco night, but John is out on a hunt and Sam is at a sleepover. Left to his own devices, Dean makes flautas instead, complete with a creamy cheese sauce that he drizzles on top. Without even really thinking about what he’s doing, he drops half a dozen of them into a Tupperware container and heads out to the menagerie.

The barn is quiet tonight. The monsters had their own dinner a few hours earlier—all except the angel, whom Dean finds sitting up in the last cell, inspecting his damaged wings. Dean sits down beside the cage and waits to be acknowledged.

“Back again, Dean Winchester?” The angel’s sardonic tone is hampered by an undercurrent of pain in his voice. When he looks up at Dean, Dean sees with a jolt that his face is streaked with dried blood. There’s still a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth.

“You still haven’t told me your name,” Dean counters.

The angel sighs. “Why this fixation on my name?” he asks. “I am no one to you. Why do you care?”

“You’ve been here for weeks now,” Dean says, shrugging. “I still don’t know what to call you.”

“And the other occupants of this prison? Do you know their names?”

Dean says nothing. His stomach squirms. No, he doesn’t know their names. He barely looks at them, barely hears their cries and pleas and threats. They aren’t people to him. He can’t let them be.

“Why do you want my name, then?” the angel continues. “Why am I any different?”

Dean can feel the angel’s eyes on him. He can’t bring himself to look up, instead staring at his shoes. He imagines that blue gaze boring into him, seeing through his very skin. A chill runs through him.

“You’re not like them,” he hears himself say. “You’re not a monster.”

The angel laughs humorlessly. “You don’t know me,” he says darkly. “You might not believe that if you did.”

“Give me a chance, then,” says Dean.

The angel is silent. Dean finally looks up. The angel is bent away from him, his face hidden by that riotous black hair. He’s resumed the inspection of his wings, running his fingers over the bent and broken feathers.

Dean waits a while longer, but the angel continues to ignore him. Sighing, he pops the hinge on his Tupperware and extracts a flauta.

Immediately, the angel’s head snaps up, his nose sniffing the air. “What is _that_?” he asks, his voice cracking a little.

“This? My dinner.” Dean holds up the container to show him.

The angel actually drags himself across the floor, stopping only when he reaches the end of his chain, as close as he can possibly get to the edge of the cell—and to the flautas. He stares at them with a new intensity, as though he is a man starving to death.

“Sorry,” says Dean, bemused. “Do you eat—uh—people food?”

“Do I look like a horse to you?” the angel snaps. But then he swallows shakily, and Dean’s pretty sure his mouth is watering. “Normally I have no need of human sustenance,” the angel says slowly. “My grace provides all the nourishment this body requires. But now—as weak as I am—that _smell_ —”

He reaches out, almost unconsciously. His fingertips just barely brush the bars of the cage and he instantly snatches his hand back as though he’s been burned. “Warding,” he mutters, almost too quietly for Dean to hear. All of a sudden, the pompous timbre has gone from his voice. His eyes are duller than before, as though their angry fire has fizzled out. He just looks tired now. And hungry.

Very carefully, wary of his proximity to the angel, Dean pushes the container through the bars and slides it across the floor. In a movement almost too fast for Dean to see, the angel pulls out a flauta and sticks the whole thing in his mouth. An expression of pure bliss passes over his face as he chews and swallows with a satisfied gulp. Thirty seconds more and the remaining flautas are gone, the only evidence of their existence a smattering of crumbs on the barn floor.

They sit quietly for a long time after that, the angel’s eyes closed in satisfaction. Dean watches him carefully. His face is softer somehow, the lines of anger relaxed. The silence between them is—not comfortable, not exactly, but... familiar.

Dean gets up to leave. As he stretches, brushing dirt from his jeans, a voice speaks from behind him.

“Castiel.”

Dean turns back, frowning. “What did you say?”

The angel’s eyes are bright, but not burning. “My name,” he says. “My name is Castiel.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Where do you _go_ every night?” Sam demands. He’s cornered Dean after dinner a few weeks later, a pile of dirty plates in his hands and a determined expression on his young face.

“Chores,” Dean says, brushing past Sam to get to the sink. “I help out in the menagerie all the time, Sammy, you know that.”

“Not this much,” Sam argues, refusing to let it go. “And not for so long. You’ve been spending hours out there!”

“I’ve been—cleaning,” Dean says unconvincingly.

“Bullshit,” says Sam.

“Sammy! Language!”

“You’d better tell me what’s going on soon,” Sam says, dropping his pile of dishes into the sink with a deafening clang. “I thought we agreed never to lie to each other.” Before Dean can say a word, Sam disappears out the door.

Dean looks after him, sighing. Sam has a point: over the past few weeks, Dean has been spending as much time as he possibly can in the menagerie with Castiel. He brings him dinner as often as he can, even sometimes a snack during the day if John happens to be out of the house.

Despite the food and conversation, Castiel weakens every day. He won’t tell Dean what John’s been doing to him—not in so many words—but Dean has a pretty good idea from the bruises on Cas’s face and the bloodied mess of his wings.

Dean visits the menagerie one rainy Sunday afternoon with a mop in hand: John took off an hour before with a case of stakes and wooden bullets in tow, calling over his shoulder that he was leaving to clear a vamp nest, and could Dean clean up a mess in cell #5 when he had the chance?

The moment Dean walks into the menagerie, the smell hits him like a reeking wave. The almost sweet, metallic scent of blood. Dean walks further into the barn, bile already rising in his throat. When he reaches the fifth cell on the left and sees the “mess” inside, he almost pukes right then and there.

The walls and floor of the cell are drenched with blood, most of it dried, some still spreading thickly across the floor. Dean puts a hand on the bars to steady himself, closing his eyes and breathing through his mouth. The air tastes like rust and fear.

“Decapitation,” murmurs a voice to his right. Dean turns to see Castiel, sitting up in his cell.

“What?” Dean asks, still struggling not to hurl.

“It was swift and painless,” Castiel explains. “She didn’t suffer.”

She. Dean remembers her, the vampire girl. She was young, maybe younger than him—although, being a vampire, she could easily have been a century old. She’d arrived at the menagerie just a few days after Cas; John must have finally tortured the location of her nest out of her. The quick, bloody death was her reward.

Dean holds onto the bars for a few moments longer, breathing as deeply as he dares, calming his roiling stomach. Finally he straightens up, wipes a hand across his sweaty brow, and walks into the cell, careful not to step in the puddle of blood. He starts to clean.

“I’m glad she didn’t suffer,” he says to Cas as he mops.

“I know,” says Castiel. “You’re a good person, Dean. A better man than your father by far.”

Dean huffs a laugh. “How can you know that? I’m no saint.”

“I can see your soul,” Castiel says simply.

Dean looks up, surprised. “You can?”

“I can see all humans’ souls,” Castiel says. “Well—maybe ‘see’ is the wrong choice of words. I can sort of... sense them. And your soul, Dean Winchester, is pure, untarnished.”

“Oh,” says Dean, floored by this pronouncement. “Wow. That’s, um... good to know. So then you’ve seen my dad’s soul too, right?”

“I have,” says Castiel, and leaves it at that. Dean decides pulling at that thread probably isn’t the best course of action, for either of them.

“What about you? How’s your soul looking?” he asks the angel, resuming his mopping.

“I’m not human. I don’t have a soul. Just my grace.”

“Yeah, you’ve mentioned that before. What is that, exactly?”

“I suppose you could call it my life force. It’s what makes me an angel. Without it I’d become mortal, like you.”

“Would you have a soul, then? If you lost your grace and became human?”

Castiel doesn’t reply. Dean looks over at him and sees that his brow is furrowed, as though lost in thought. “I don’t know,” he says finally. I’ve never thought much about it.”

Silence falls between them. Dean leaves to change his mop water and returns to find Castiel sitting in the same position, motionless. “But if you did have a soul,” he presses on, as though their conversation never paused, “what would it look like? I mean, have you—have you ever killed anyone?”

“I am eons old, Dean,” Cas replies. “I have fought in more battles than I can count. Of course I’ve killed.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, though,” Dean says. “Not necessarily. Sometimes you have to kill... to stop a monster... or to protect someone you love...”

“Sometimes,” Castiel says quietly, his voice gentler than Dean’s ever heard it.

By the time Dean has finished cleaning the cell, the smell of bleach now finally overpowering that of blood, he’s exhausted. Although from the looks of it, not as exhausted as Castiel, who’s lying down on the barn floor, his skin sickly pale.

“You doing okay?” Dean asks, touching the bars of Castiel’s cell. He knows how stupid it sounds, but he has to ask.

“I’ve been better,” Cas replies, and Dean almost chuckles. There’s nothing very funny about the sight of the angel lying prostrate on the cell floor though.

“Why did my dad take you?” Dean asks. “ _How_ did my dad take you? I mean—you’re an angel. He’s a good hunter, yeah, but he’s no superhuman.”

“He hasn’t told you?” Cas says, sounding surprised. Dean shakes his head. With a grunt of pain, Cas pushes himself back up into a sitting position. On the other side of the bars, Dean slides down to the floor.

“I let my guard down,” Castiel says. “I did something... something considered a crime by the other angels. They cast me out, my brothers and sisters, abandoned me on Earth. I was angry, I was weak, I was alone... and then your father and those other hunters found me. And now look at me.” He holds up his bleeding, manacled hands, a humorless smile on his face. “These sigils? They dampen my grace and siphon my strength. After I am tortured, I can’t heal myself. The longer I stay here, the weaker I become.”

“But why?” Dean demands. “What does he want with you? You’re not like the others. You wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

“Don’t be so sure of that, Dean,” Castiel says darkly. “But you’re right, it isn’t that. Your father thinks I have information... that I know something about the creature that killed your mother. A demon, with yellow eyes.”

Dean’s heart skips a beat. “And do you?” he whispers. “Do you know something?”

“Of course not,” Castiel growls. “If I did, I would have told him long ago. I wouldn’t still be lying here in filth, my wings in tatters.” He shakes his head, and when he speaks again his voice is calmer. “I know the yellow-eyed demons only as figures of myth and legend. I don’t know their names, or their purpose. I’ve told your father this, again and again, but he refuses to believe me.”

“If you got out of this place,” Dean says after several minutes of silence, “if you escaped... would your grace come back? Would you heal?”

“Yes, eventually,” says Castiel. “But I’m never getting out of here. I told you, I was cast out by my brothers and sisters. No one is coming for me.” He sighs and lies down, closing his eyes. “If I may make a request,” he says, “that homemade pizza you were telling me about the other day sounds divine.”

“Okay, Cas,” Dean says softly. “I’ll go to the store tomorrow.”

* * *

Dean never gets a chance to go to the store. He jerks awake at the crack of dawn when his bedroom door slams open. Dean blinks up into his father’s face, its features contorted in anger.

“How was the hunt?” Dean asks blearily. John rips the covers from Dean’s bed, his hands shaking with anger.

“How dare you?” he hisses. “My own son—I can’t believe it—”

He’s babbling. Dean doesn’t understand. “Dad, what are you talking about?” He sits up. Behind John, he sees Sam’s frightened face peeking around the half-closed door. Dean shakes his head infinitesimally, telling Sam to go, to get the hell out of this situation, whatever it is. Sam looks terrified, but he disappears from the doorway.

John has collapsed into Dean’s desk chair, breathing heavily. “Dad,” Dean says, “what’s going on? What happened?”

“You know exactly what happened!” John shouts. “Fraternizing with the enemy! My own son! What would your mother say?”

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dean insists. “Can you just tell me—?”

Instead of telling him, John seizes Dean by his forearm and practically drags him from the room. Dean scrambles to keep up with his father as they stride down the hallway. They reach John’s office, and John pushes Dean into the computer chair, then leans over him to tap some keys on the keyboard.

Grainy footage from a security camera fills the screen, and Dean’s stomach drops as he recognizes the scene. He sees himself, sitting cross-legged outside Castiel’s cell, pushing a plate of steak through the bars. John hits the fast-forward button and Dean watches the minutes whiz by as he continues to sit there, talking to Castiel, and the angel talking back.

Finally John hits another key and the screen goes black. “Well?” he demands, swiveling the office chair so that Dean is facing him instead of the computer. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“When... when did you put security cameras in the menagerie?” Dean asks. His mouth is bone-dry, his heart beating twice its normal speed.

“Last week,” John says. “I didn’t have a chance to review the footage until I got back this morning—and imagine my surprise when I found _this_. How long have you been buddies with that monster, hmm? How long have you been feeding that _thing_ , and having fucking _conversations_ with it?”

“He isn’t a monster,” Dean says. “If you’d just talk to him—”

“I have talked to him,” John snarls. “I’ve been talking to him for weeks now, and he refuses to give me the information I need—”

“He doesn’t know!” Dean shouts. “He doesn’t know anything about Mom, he—”

But he said the wrong thing. John’s eyes spark with fury, his mouth hardens into a thin line. “You stay here,” John says coldly, and before Dean can move he’s out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Dean hears the scrape of the lock—he leaps out of the chair and grabs the doorknob, but it won’t budge. He’s been locked in.

“Dad! Let me out!” he shouts, listening to his father’s footsteps retreat down the hall. “Dad! Don’t hurt him!” He jiggles the doorknob, even throws himself against the door, but it’s no use. “Dad!” he shouts again, almost sobbing now. “Dad, please!”

“Shut up!” a voice hisses on the other side of the door. “And let go of the door. I’m trying to concentrate.”

Dean falls back, his heart still bursting with pain and fear. Less than a minute later, the lock clicks, and the door slides open to reveal Sam, still wearing his Star Wars pajamas, a set of lockpicks in hand. “I knew something was going on with you and the menagerie,” he says. “Dad went straight there—you’d better run.”

“Sammy, I owe you one huge fucking Lego set,” Dean says, managing to ruffle his kid brother’s hair as he lunges out of the room. “Don’t let me forget!” he calls over his shoulder.

He takes the stairs two at a time, and breaks into a flat-out run once he reaches the backyard, but he’s too late. He’s barely reached the menagerie doors when they’re flung open and John appears, a bloody knife in his hand. Dean skids to a halt, panting. “What did you do?” he gasps. “What did—?”

He flings himself at the barn doors, but John catches him and throws him back. “Get. In. The. House,” John bites out through gritted teeth. “Don’t make me tell you twice.” Dean looks up into his father’s livid face and sees a man he doesn’t recognize.

“Fuck you,” he says, and spits into the grass. John raises a hand and Dean flinches. But John doesn’t strike. He just stands there, arm raised, his son cowering before him. Finally, slowly, John lets his hand fall to his side.

“Get back in the house,” he says again, his voice now eerily quiet. “It’s almost time to drive your brother to school.”

* * *

Dean doesn’t sleep that night. His whole body is on fire with the want, the _need_ to go to Cas, to make sure he’s okay. But he doesn’t dare sneak out, not now that he knows his father has the place under surveillance. If he goes to see Cas now, John will only lash out again. And Dean can’t let Cas get hurt any further on his account.

Dean’s door creaks open and Sam slips inside. Dean sits up and Sam crawls up onto the bed to sit beside him. “You really care about that angel?” Sam whispers. Dean can see the reflection of the moon in his eyes.

“Yeah,” Dean says.

“You don’t think he’s a monster, like the others? You don’t think he’s bad?”

“No,” Dean breathes. “He isn’t bad. I know him, Sammy.”

“Okay.” Sam nods, like he’s come to a decision. “Here.”

The objects clink together as he drops them into Dean’s hand: the lockpicks. “But the cameras,” Dean says.

“Don’t worry about them,” Sam says. “I put them on a loop. He won’t be able to see you at all. Just be quiet getting out there, okay?”

“Jesus, Sammy,” Dean says, floored. “You’re a genius.”

Sam shrugs. “I’m taking Computer Forensics as an elective,” he says.

Dean has never been so proud to have such a nerd for a brother. He leans forward and hugs Sam tightly. “Don’t forget my Lego set,” Sam whispers. Dean laughs.

* * *

It’s deathly quiet in the menagerie. Dean glances into each cell as he tiptoes down the corridor between them: all the monsters he can see are asleep—or comatose. Finally he reaches the last and largest cell and looks inside, terrified of what he’ll find there.

What he sees is a heap of bloodied wings, and beneath them a mop of dark hair. Dean is petrified for a moment that the worst has happened—but then he notices that the wings are rising and falling, ever so gently. Castiel is alive.

Before he can really think about what he’s doing, he has the padlock in his hands. It’s been awhile since he’s picked a lock, but the skill comes back to him easily. It only takes a few minutes of turning the lockpicks this way and that before the lock clicks open.

Ever so gently, conscious of every creak, Dean opens the cage door.

He crouches beside the angel, his eyes taking in every bruise and cut on Castiel’s body and wings. “Cas,” he whispers. “Cas, I’m here.” He lays a cautious hand on Castiel’s shoulder.

Cas jerks awake, his eyes flaring wide with fear and pain. “Dean,” he says, his body relaxing. He has a black eye and a bloody nose. Dean’s heart breaks for him. “Dean, I was so scared for you.”

“For _me_?” Dean whispers, astonished. “Cas, have you seen yourself?”

“Well, I don’t exactly have a mirror in here,” Castiel says dryly. “I’m sure it looks worse than it is.”

“It looks fucking terrible.”

Castiel chuckles, but his laughter quickly becomes a racking cough. Dean pats him awkwardly on the back. “Shit, Cas, I’m sorry,” he says. “I should have brought you some water or something.” He glances over at the water bowl on the floor; it’s lying upside-down, bone-dry.

Castiel shakes his head, still coughing weakly. “I’m glad you came,” he says finally. “I was worried he’d hurt you as well, and you’re infinitely more breakable than I am.” He looks up into Dean’s face, his blue eyes full of warmth. “But you’re alright,” he says. “Thank goodness.”

He closes his eyes and leans forward into Dean’s chest. Surprised but gratified, Dean wraps his arms around Castiel and pulls him close. Cas is warm and soft, and as Dean holds him he hums with pleasure. They stay like that for a long time, the angel and the human, just holding each other, saying nothing.

When they finally pull apart, Dean looks into Castiel’s face and gasps. Cas frowns. “Dean? What’s wrong?”

Ever so gently, Dean reaches forward and touches the skin beneath Castiel’s eye, which was black and blue mere minutes before. Now the skin there is clean, unblemished, no trace left of the bruise. Dean traces the area around Castiel’s eye, astonished. “You’re... better,” he whispers.

Castiel reaches up and covers Dean’s hand with his own, holding it to his face. He closes his eyes for a moment, and when he opens them again he’s beaming. “Dean,” he breathes. “Do you realize what’s happening?”

“No,” Dean says honestly. “Not at all.”

“Your presence,” Cas says. “Your touch... it’s healing me.”

Dean looks Cas up and down, taking in his haggard appearance. “You don’t look healed,” he says doubtfully. “And what the hell do you mean, my touch? How could _I_ be healing you?”

“It’s your soul,” Cas explains, still smiling. “Your beautiful, golden soul. Being close to you, touching you... you’re lending me strength, allowing my grace to heal my body. Of course,” he adds matter-of-factly, “I am very broken, and I’m still shackled in these godforsaken chains, so we can’t expect you to be able to heal me fully, or even mostly, within this cell—”

“That doesn’t matter,” Dean says, his heart pounding. He’s come to a decision, just in the past few seconds. “I’m breaking you out of here.”


	3. Chapter 3

With Sam’s help, Dean forms a plan the very next day. The only problem is, he has to wait for John to leave town before he can execute it; it’s far too dangerous to break Cas out while his father is still at large on the ranch.

Finally, a week later, his chance comes: word arrives of a werewolf pack terrorizing upstate New York. John packs a bag and heads out right after dinner, leaving Sam and Dean with strict orders not to step foot in the menagerie while he’s gone. (“Those things can go a few days without food,” he grunts when Sam meekly brings up the subject.)

As soon as the dust settles behind John’s SUV, Sam and Dean spring into action. Sam sets up shop in John’s office, looping the video camera feeds on one monitor and tracking John’s cell phone location on the other. Dean, meanwhile, extracts an already-packed duffel bag from beneath his bed and clips a walkie-talkie to his belt.

He hugs Sam goodbye. “Take care of yourself,” he says gruffly. “Don’t let Dad give you any shit, okay? And keep in touch. I’ll be back for you as soon as me and Cas get settled someplace safe.”

“I know you will,” Sam says, not a trace of doubt in his voice. Dean’s insides squirm guiltily. He hates leaving Sam, but he can’t take him with him when he has no idea where the hell he’s even going. It’s safer to leave him here with their father, even though it breaks Dean’s heart to do it. John is many things, but he would never lay a finger on Sam. And if their escape goes as planned, he’ll never know that Sam was involved.

Swallowing his guilt and slinging the duffel over his shoulder, Dean heads out to the menagerie.

“Hello, Dean.” Castiel is sprawled out across the floor, one leg bent at an odd angle, but still he beams when he sees Dean.

Dean gets the padlock open in a matter of seconds. “Hey, Cas,” he says, dropping to the floor beside him and getting to work on Castiel’s manacles. “We’re getting out of here.”

“What about your brother?” Castiel asks anxiously. “Will he be safe alone with your father?”

“He’ll be okay,” Dean says. “My dad would never hurt Sammy.”

The lock clicks open and Castiel’s handcuffs fall to the floor. Castiel breathes a sigh of relief. The skin on his wrists is rubbed raw, but Dean can’t think about that now. He sets to work on the lock binding Castiel’s ankles together.

Suddenly the walkie-talkie on Dean’s belt crackles to life. “Dean!” Sam’s voice shouts. “Dean, get out of there! Dad turned around, he’s coming back!”

“Shit,” Dean breathes. The lockpicks slide through his fingers and crash to the floor. With shaking hands, Dean retrieves the walkie and puts it to his mouth. “Sammy, listen to me,” he says. “Go back to your room, right now, get in bed, and stay there. No matter what you hear, stay in that bed, and when Dad comes up to find you, you say that you knew nothing about any of this. Okay? Deny everything, and you’ll be alright. Okay, Sammy? Sammy, can you hear me?”

“I hear you, Dean,” Sam says. His voice is faint. “I’m going now. Good luck.”

Dean tries to pick up the lockpicks but his hands are shaking so much that he can’t get a grip on them. “Dean,” Castiel murmurs, “touch me.”

Dean blinks at him. “Uh,” he splutters, “I don’t think now is really the time—”

“Not like that,” Cas says impatiently. His face is bloodied and bruised but he still manages to roll his eyes. “You need to lend me your strength. Come here.”

He holds out his hand, and Dean grasps it tightly. Castiel closes his eyes, his face scrunching up in deep concentration. He squeezes Dean’s hand tighter and tighter, until Dean almost cries out from the pain—but then a lock clicks, and the manacles on Castiel’s ankles spring open.

Dean lets out a whoop. “Holy shit, Cas, you did it! You—Cas?”

Castiel’s hand has gone limp in his, his eyes rolling back in his head. “Cas!” Dean shouts, shaking him. “Are you okay? What happened?”

Cas’s eyes flicker open. He seems to have trouble focusing on Dean. “That took... all of my strength...” he murmurs, his voice almost too faint for Dean to hear.

“Okay,” Dean says. “Okay, okay, uh—we gotta go. Okay.”

Sliding one hand under Cas’s elbows and another beneath his knees, Dean lifts the angel up into his arms. Even with those magnificent wings, Cas weighs almost nothing. Dean can feel his ribs beneath his fingers. As soon as they get out of this hellhole, he’s making sure Cas does nothing but eat for _days_.

Hefting Castiel’s weight in his arms, Dean starts down the corridor once more. Now that he’s no longer in contact with Sam, he has no idea how close John is; he could be back at the ranch already, waiting on the other side of the barn doors with a loaded shotgun.

But when Dean makes it out into the clear night, the air is still, silent. He stumbles across the dewy grass towards the driveway, where his baby is waiting for him, the moonlight reflecting off her black exterior.

He opens the passenger door with his foot and places Cas inside with as much gentleness as he can muster. Just as he’s running around to the driver’s side, he hears the roar of an engine in the distance. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he mutters, diving into the car and turning the key.

The Impala’s engine purrs to life and Dean whips the wheel to the side, tearing down the winding dirt driveway at breakneck speed. He’s almost to the street when John’s black SUV speeds into view, headlights blazing. Dean cuts the wheel, swerving within an inch of the other car, and skids out onto the street.

John starts to make an awkward U-turn behind him, but Dean puts his foot down on the gas pedal, and the Impala’s wheels screech on the pavement as she zooms down the road and into the night.

* * *

It’s almost midnight before Dean slows down to merely ten miles over the speed limit. He’s taken every twist and turn he possibly could, getting himself hopelessly lost in back roads before miraculously finding his way onto the Interstate.

In the passenger seat beside him, Cas is fast asleep, his breathing shallow. Dean glances over at him every few seconds, concerned. Breaking that lock seems to have taken what little strength Cas had left out of him entirely.

“Cas,” Dean whispers, tapping his shoulder gently. “Hey, Cas, you with me, buddy?”

Cas merely groans.

Dean had figured they’d drive all night before daring to make a stop, but Cas’s current state has got him worried. He squints at the mile markers. They’re pretty far from the ranch now, and the chances of John finding them at one seedy motel out of the dozens upon dozens they’ve already passed are slim to none. At the next blinking neon sign, Dean takes the exit.

* * *

There’s nothing else for it: the motel room is filthy. Dean allows Cas to sit down on the bed only because Cas himself is also filthy—although that’s something that Dean plans to rectify as soon as humanly possible. Cas, for his part, doesn’t seem to care so much about cleanliness; he immediately collapses onto the bed, his eyes fluttering closed once more.

“You okay there, buddy?” Dean calls over his shoulder as he steps into the doorway of the bathroom to scope it out. The bathtub is coated with a layer of oily grime, but the sink and toilet seem to be reasonably unsoiled.

In the other room, Cas lets out a low groan. “I’m fine,” he murmurs unconvincingly.

Dean shakes his head. “I’ll be right back,” he says. “Don’t go anywhere.”

Cas groans again.

Dean returns five minutes later, his arms laden with every cleaning agent the guy at the front desk could scrounge up. Kneeling on a bath towel, Dean turns on the hot water and scrubs the entire tub until it’s nearly spotless. Satisfied with his handiwork, he stands up, washes his grimy hands, and retreats back to the bedroom to fetch Castiel.

Cas is sleeping again, but fitfully; he trembles and twitches until Dean shakes him gently awake. Cas rolls over and opens his eyes, his gaze a little unfocused. “C’mon,” Dean says gently, “let’s get you cleaned up.”

In the bathroom, Dean strips off Castiel’s clothes. The trench coat is the first to go. Ripped and stained almost beyond recognition, Dean tears it off remorselessly. Next to go is the suit jacket and shirt, and finally Cas’s tattered pants and underwear. Although Cas shows no sign whatsoever of embarrassment, Dean still keeps his eyes carefully averted as he helps Cas over the rim and settles him into the steaming bath.

When Dean removes Cas’s shirt to reveal his bare chest, he has to stop himself from crying out. Cas is rail-thin, his ribs clearly visible beneath his translucently pale skin. Dean needs to get some cheeseburgers into Castiel, stat.

The tub is much too small for an actual adult, so Cas sits with his knees to his chest. Dean picks up the bar of soap and, with infinite gentleness, begins to wash Castiel.

Every few minutes, Dean has to drain the bathtub entirely and fill it back up with clean water. Cas is dirtier than Dean would have thought possible; every time Dean thinks he’s reached the final layer of muck, the water turns black yet again.

Finally, after almost forty-five minutes, Dean declares Cas as clean as he’s going to get, at least for now. He helps Cas to stand up, placing an arm around his bare waist to balance him, and guides him back to the bed. This time Dean yanks off the covers before he lets Cas have a seat on the (ostensibly) clean sheets beneath.

Dean dresses Cas in some of his own clothes from his duffel bag: sweatpants and his softest T-shirt. Dean’s clothes hang off of Cas, but he seems comfortable enough. He lies down in the bed and closes his eyes, breathing deeply for once. Dean swallows, his eyes burning with unshed tears.

“Dean,” Cas whispers, “lie down with me.”

“Are you sure?” Dean asks, his voice breaking.

Cas taps the mattress beside him. “Get in here.”

Dean gives a little chuckle and crawls into bed beside Cas. Cas immediately rolls over towards Dean and nestles his head into the crook of Dean’s shoulder. “Mmm,” he says, wrapping his arms around Dean and pulling him close. “Much better.”

Dean breathes Castiel in: soap, shampoo, and something else underneath, something undefinable. He touches the nape of Castiel’s neck, where his damp hair has started to form into tiny curls, and a feeling bursts in his chest, something painful and wonderful all at once.

“I’m so sorry, Cas,” Dean whispers, and touches his lips gently to the top of Cas’s head.

Cas squirms just enough out of Dean’s grip to raise his head and look at him. Dean wants to duck away, but there’s nowhere to go. “Sorry for what?” Cas asks, sounding genuinely confused.

Dean laughs humorlessly. “For what?” he repeats incredulously. “Cas, I kept you prisoner! I had you chained up in a barn like some wild animal!”

“Your father did that,” Cas reminds him gently, “not you.”

But Dean shakes his head, looking determinedly over Cas’s head so he doesn’t have to meet his eyes. “Maybe he caught you, and chained you up, but I didn’t do anything. For the longest time, I did _nothing_. I let him starve you and—and hurt you—”

“Dean,” Cas murmurs, his voice gentler than Dean has ever heard it. “Look at me. Please.” Reluctantly Dean lowers his eyes to meet Cas’s, and the intensity that he finds there takes his breath away. The fire is burning once again behind Cas’s eyes, an icy blue flame that Dean can’t look away from.

“Dean,” Castiel continues, “you forget. I can see your soul. I can see it now, and feel it, shining golden and bright within you.” He rests one hand on Dean’s chest. “Being close to you, Dean, touching you—it heals me, makes me whole. Every moment that I am in your presence, I grow just a little bit stronger.”

“But if you hadn’t been so weak in the first place—”

“Dean,” Cas says again, an edge to his voice now. “I know your role in my imprisonment, and I accept it. I do not blame you for it. Is that not enough for you to forgive yourself?”

“I… I’ll try,” Dean says slowly.

“That’s all that I ask.” Cas smiles, and Dean feels again that bursting, burning sensation in his chest. Without warning, Castiel leans forward and presses his mouth against Dean’s. Dean freezes for a fraction of a second, taken by surprise, but an instant later his brain clicks into gear.

Dean hugs Cas tightly and rolls them over so that he’s on top. Cas stretches out his wings and envelops Dean in a blanket of feathers, gripping him with hands and wings all at once. Dean’s hands, meanwhile, are caught up in Cas’s hair as he kisses him insistently.

Cas’s lack of expertise is more than made up for by an excess of enthusiasm. His hands are now travelling up and down Dean’s body. Dean’s breath hitches and Cas chuckles into his mouth. Suddenly Cas pushes off the bed with his wings and flips them over once again—Dean finds himself pinned beneath Castiel, in the shadow of his magnificent wings.

But just as they’re getting a new rhythm going, Cas collapses to the side, breathing heavily. “Cas? Cas!” Dean leans over him, his eyes darting over Castiel’s body for some sign of injury. Cas shakes his head.

“Not as much energy as I thought,” he pants. He puts a hand on Dean’s cheek, and Dean turns into it automatically. Cas smiles. He leans up and kisses Dean ever so gently. He’s already getting better at it, his technique more refined. Cas settles back down again, his head on the pillow. “I’m going to sleep now, Dean,” he says, and closes his eyes.

Dean lies still beside him until Cas’s breathing becomes even and deep. Then he wriggles out from within Cas’s arms and pads into the bathroom. He stares at himself in the hazy mirror, trying to see that golden soul that Cas keeps talking about. But all Dean sees is himself: someone who’s killed, who’s tortured, who allowed the man that he loves to be kept in chains for weeks and weeks…

A jolt runs through Dean’s body as the thought permeates his consciousness. The man that he loves… well, it’s true, isn’t it? His feelings for Castiel go far beyond friendship, far beyond the physical aspects of their relationship that they’ve only just begun to explore.

He’s in love.

As Dean brushes his teeth and changes into more comfortable sleeping clothes, he comes to a decision. He hadn’t determined yet where he was going to take Cas, where he could hide them away while Cas recuperates, but he knows now. There’s one place where he knows Cas will be safe, where Cas will be taken care of.

Tomorrow, Dean will take Cas to Jody’s.


	4. Chapter 4

“Dean!” Jody greets him with a warm smile and a big hug. “How’re you doing, kiddo? I wasn’t expecting you! Oh—and who’s this?”

Cas is hanging back on the front step, partially hiding behind Dean. He’s wearing a blanket (stolen from the motel laundry room) around his shoulders, disguising his wings—for the most part. He just looks a little lumpy. Cas tentatively returns Jody’s smile, and steps forward to Dean’s side to shake her outstretched hand.

But when Jody’s hand touches Castiel’s, she freezes in place. In a movement almost too fast for Dean to see, her hand whips back inside the doorway and returns holding a rifle, pointing it directly at Cas’s chest.

“Dean, come inside,” Jody says, her voice hard, her expression icy. “That isn’t a human.”

Dean steps between Cas and the gun, holding out a placating hand. “I know, Jody. Let me explain—”

“Explain!?” Jody fumes. “Dean, you brought a monster to my home. To where my daughters live. What the hell were you thinking?”

“He isn’t a monster,” Dean insists. Behind him, Cas shrinks into himself, his eyes downcast, shuffling his feet despondently. On the car ride here, Dean promised him a warm welcome. Now he feels like a lying asshole. Again.

“He’s not human,” says Jody, shaking her head. “I don’t know what he is, but—”

“He’s an angel, Jody.” Silence falls between them. Jody stares at Cas, wide-eyed, her rifle still held high. Dean’s hand remains raised, his body a barricade between the gun and Castiel.

“An angel,” Jody repeats finally. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“It’s true!” Dean says. “I can prove it. Cas, take off your blanket.”

“I don’t want to,” says Cas, pulling the edges of the blanket more firmly around himself.

“Cas, please,” Dean coaxes. “Jody’s good people, I swear. We just have to explain the situation. Okay?” He holds out his hand. Cas looks down at it, contemplating.

He reaches forward and takes Dean’s hand, shaking the blanket from his shoulders as he does so. The blanket settles into a heap at Castiel’s feet, and behind his shoulders, the great silver-blue wings rise up, feathers ruffling.

Jody drops the gun. She stares at Cas in wonderment, her mouth moving soundlessly.

“Please, Jody,” Dean says. Cas’s hand trembles in his, and he squeezes it reassuringly. “He’s not a monster. He wouldn’t hurt anyone, I swear. My dad took him prisoner, tortured him for weeks, and I—”

Dean swallows. He can still feel the guilt, the shame, roiling in his belly. It’s Cas’s turn to squeeze his hand, lending Dean the strength he needs. “I broke him out. Eventually. We had nowhere else to go. He just needs a place to rest. He’s so sick, Jody. Please.”

Jody looks Cas up and down, taking in his loose clothing, his pale skin, his gaunt face. Cas’s wings look much better since Dean cleaned all the blood and grime from them last night, but there was nothing he could do about the feathers that were broken or missing. In time, Cas has assured him, he will molt, and the damaged feathers will grow back new and whole. But for now, Cas’s damaged wings are just another reminder of the hell he’s been put through. And Dean’s own role in that hell.

Jody is shaking her head. “I believe you, Dean, and I’d like to help, but I can’t take him in! I can’t trust a creature around the girls.”

Cas winces. He’s hanging his head again, his wingtips dragging on the ground.

“He isn’t dangerous,” Dean repeats. This isn’t going how he planned. He knew Jody was wary of monsters—she’s a hunter, too, or at least she used to be—but he thought, as a caregiver, as a mother, that she would understand. That she could see past Cas’s otherness and take Dean’s word that he’s safe, that he’s harmless.

They’re at an impasse. Jody stands in the doorway, firmly blocking the entrance to her home, to the safety net that she could provide. Dean doesn’t know what to do. Where do they go from here? When they escaped from the menagerie, he had no plan, just the overwhelming urge to get out, to get away from John and that horrible place. Jody’s house was the only place he could think of to go, the only place where he had friends—family, even—who wouldn’t turn him in to John, who might accept Cas as one of them. But apparently he was wrong.

“I think you should go,” Jody says finally, her voice wavering slightly. Dean’s heart sinks, the last few vestiges of hope dissipating. And then, behind him, Castiel collapses. He tumbles down the few steps that lead up to Jody’s door, and lands sprawled on the walkway.

Dean is beside him in an instant, running his hands over Cas, checking for scrapes or bruises. Castiel murmurs something incomprehensible, but Dean understands. He takes Cas’s hand and grips it tightly, willing his own energy to flow into Castiel, to strengthen him. Dean still doesn’t know how the whole his-soul-heals-Cas-somehow thing works, whether it’s merely proximity, or incorporates intent as well. He’s not even sure if Cas knows fully how it works. But he can feel something now, some kind of current flowing between him and Cas, a current conducted by their entwined hands.

A minute passes—or five, or ten, Dean really has no idea—and he knows that he can loosen his grip now. Cas manages to sit up and, with Dean’s careful assistance, to stand. “Let’s go,” Dean says to Cas, who nods in assent. Dean turns back to pick up the blanket, and finds Jody standing on the front step. She’s put the gun away somewhere, and she now stands with her arms crossed, the front door open behind her.

“What was that?” she asks carefully.

“Oh,” says Dean. “Um. Cas is still pretty weak—you know, from the torture and everything—but when he—uh—when he touches me… it helps him feel better.”

“Dean’s soul burns very brightly,” Cas says. “Close contact with such a beautiful soul, and specifically one whose owner cares for me as Dean does, is restorative for me.”

Jody’s gaze flicks from Dean to Cas and back again. “All right,” she says finally. “You boys better come inside.”

Dean and Cas exchange shocked glances. “Jody—” Dean begins.

“Get in here before I change my mind,” Jody says, and disappears into the house.

* * *

By the time Claire and Alex get home from their respective after-school activities two hours later, Cas and Dean are installed side by side on the couch, drinking tea and munching on trail mix. Alex gives a great whoop of excitement when she sees Dean, and swoops down to hug him tightly. Claire hangs back, quiet, but when Dean gets up to give her a hug too, he can tell that she’s just as happy to see him, in her own way.

“This is my friend Castiel,” Dean tells the girls. Cas raises a hand in greeting. “He’s not feeling too hot right now. Your mom’s letting us crash for a while until he gets better.”

“Is he contagious?” Alex wants to know.

“Nah,” Dean assures her. “Just having a rough time, you know?” The girls seem to understand that, and a minute later Jody ducks her head in to announce that dinner’s ready, heading off any further questions about Cas’s health.

Cas leaves the blanket behind him when he gets up. Dean glances at him to make sure he isn’t having any trouble standing—and does a double-take. Checking to make sure the girls have disappeared into the dining room, he hisses, “Cas, your wings!”

“Hmm?” Cas looks behind himself at the empty air where his wings ought to be. “Oh. Good.”

“Good?” Dean repeats incredulously. “Cas, where the hell are your wings?”

“Don’t worry, they’re still here.” A sort of shiver runs through Cas’s body and the air behind him shimmers, revealing the outline of those enormous feathery wings. But a second later they’re gone again, as though they’ve dissolved into thin air. “I’m just making them invisible,” Cas explains.

“This whole time,” Dean says slowly, “you could have made your wings invisible?”

“I was too weak to do it before,” Cas says, shrugging. “But normally, yes, of course I can.”

He takes Dean by the arm and marches him into the dining room for dinner.

* * *

They settle into a routine at Jody’s house more quickly than Dean could have thought possible.

Jody’s house is nestled in the foothills of a mountain range. Every day Dean and Cas go for a long walk together, hand in hand. There are countless trails to track, through woods and across meadows. Dean thinks the mountain air is doing Cas good, though Cas (of course) insists that Dean is the main factor responsible for his recovery.

And Cas is recovering, finally, growing stronger in leaps and bounds every day. The first day they go out on a hike, Dean hovers over him constantly, forcing Cas to gulp from water bottles and take a break every twenty steps. “Dean,” Cas says finally, exasperated, “I’m an _angel_ , remember? You’re treating me like I’m five years old. I am, in fact, several hundred millennia old—”

“Cool story,” Dean interrupts him. “Drink your fucking water.”

He does back off, eventually, once it becomes clear that Cas is, in fact, gaining his strength back. Buoyed by a diet of home-cooked meals and those daily nature walks, soon enough the color returns to Cas’s cheeks, and his clothes are no longer hanging off of him. In a matter of weeks, Cas goes through a physical transformation almost as incredible as his trick of disappearing and reappearing his angel wings.

Dean and Cas take their walks during the day, usually, while Jody and the girls are off at work and school. Back at the house, Dean fills the gaps in Cas’s knowledge of essential human tasks: namely, cooking, cleaning, and playing video games.

Jody is still standoffish around Cas, but the girls love him instantly. They follow him around like ducklings, hanging on his every word, squabbling over who gets to teach him how to play Mario Kart.

Dean, endlessly grateful for Jody’s hospitality (however grudging it may be) makes it a priority to do as many chores as he possibly can around the house, including cooking dinner three, sometimes four, nights a week. He recruits Cas as his sous-chef, even taking him to Target to buy him his own apron and wooden spoon.

Cas knows absolutely nothing about cooking, but he’s a good listener and a quick learner, and soon enough all Dean has to do is shout an instruction and Cas is off to the races, whisking eggs and dicing vegetables like a pro.

“You’ve been human before, right?” Dean asks one night as they’re preparing a lasagna together. Through the closed door between the kitchen and the living room, they can hear Jody and the girls laughing at some sitcom.

“I don’t know what you mean,” says Cas slowly. “I’m not human now.”

“Right,” says Dean, “but you’re in a human body, right?”

“A vessel,” Cas agrees. “All angels must take human form if we are to walk among you. If I revealed my true form to you, it would burn your eyes out.”

“Shit,” says Dean, taken aback. “Really?”

Cas pops a spoonful of grated cheese into his mouth and nods. “Don’t worry,” he adds, swallowing. “I’m very fond of your eyes. I have no desire whatsoever to incinerate them.”

“Thanks?” says Dean. “But—back to my question—you’ve been on Earth before, so you must have had a human… vessel… then, too, right?”

“A few times,” says Cas, “yes.”

“But you never learned any of this human stuff that we’ve been doing? You never went to the mall, or cooked a meal, or—or anything?”

Cas thinks about that for a moment, his brow furrowed. “It’s been many hundreds of years since I was last on earth,” he says finally. “If I learned any of this… human stuff… I must have forgotten it long ago.”

Dean is brimming with questions about angels, he has been ever since he first laid eyes on Cas. But now his priorities are different: keeping Cas safe and happy is number one on his list, and the last thing he wants to do is berate Cas with questions that make him uncomfortable, not now that he’s so peaceful and relaxed.

But there’s one question that’s been weighing heavily on Dean’s mind for a while now. He finally gets up the courage to ask it one afternoon after they’ve hiked a particularly arduous trail, which spat them out onto a cliff’s edge with the most spectacular view of a clear mountain lake far below them.

Dean and Cas settle together on a boulder, Cas so close to Dean that he’s practically in his lap. Dean runs his fingers through Cas’s hair, eliciting a little moan from Cas. “Cas,” Dean says quietly, before he has a chance to lose his nerve. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything,” says Cas, turning to smile at Dean. There’s so much trust in that smile, so much love, that it almost breaks Dean’s heart. The look on Cas’s face is more beautiful than the snow-capped mountain peaks surrounding them and the lake below, perhaps more beautiful than anything Dean has ever seen.

“The other angels…” Dean begins, and Castiel’s expression darkens. “Won’t you want to go back to them someday? Go home to Heaven?”

Castiel sighs. He takes one of Dean’s hands in his own and threads their fingers together. He speaks without looking at Dean, instead gazing out at the scene surrounding them. “The last time I saw my brothers and sisters, Dean, they abandoned me. Left me for dead. Would they take me back? Maybe. But I don’t want to go back. There’s nothing for me in Heaven, Dean, not anymore. But…”

He turns his gaze to their entwined hands, and swallows. Then he meets Dean’s gaze, and his expression is so soft Dean could cry. “But everything for me here on Earth,” he whispers.

Dean melts. His biggest fear was unfounded: Cas doesn’t want to go back to Heaven. Cas wants to stay here on Earth, with him. For him. An angel chose Dean Winchester, of all people, over literally everything else. Holy shit.

“I love you, Dean Winchester,” Castiel says, his voice clear and sure. “I love you truly and desperately, and I want nothing more than to spend all of my days by your side.”

“Wow,” Dean breathes. “I love you, too, Cas.”

Castiel beams, and leans in, but instead of kissing Dean he puts his arms around him. Dean and Cas sit on that boulder, holding each other, unmoving, for a very long time. Dean has never felt more content, or more sure of what he wants, than he does in this moment. When they finally separate, he kisses Cas once, softly, nothing more than a prelude to something they’ll do later, once they get back to the house.

They stand up to leave, taking one last look at the mountains before they depart. “So are you older than those mountains?” Dean asks Cas, putting an arm around his waist.

Cas rolls his eyes. “Millennia, Dean,” he says. “ _Millennia_.”


	5. Chapter 5

Weeks go by, and then months. Cas stops sleeping through the night—which, according to him, is a very good thing, since angels technically don’t need sleep at all—but which breaks Dean’s heart a little nonetheless. He had gotten used to both falling asleep and waking up with Cas’s warm body pressed up against him like a barnacle.

Cas still goes to sleep when Dean does, but he tends to slip out of bed sometime in the night, and wander the house (and even the grounds) while everyone else is sleeping. He discovers that the programs on TV at 4am are vastly different than those on at 4pm, and becomes obsessed with infomercials and no fewer than three different telenovelas. He reads the girls’ textbooks and scribbles notes in Enochian in the margins that no one else can read.

Sometimes he’ll go outside and return smelling like damp grass to wake Dean up and tell him about a coyote he saw, or how huge the moon is right now. Dean can’t get mad at these late-night interruptions. Sometimes he’ll even manage to throw an arm around Cas and wrestle him back into bed, to kiss him senseless until they’re both utterly exhausted.

But it isn’t until Dean walks downstairs one morning and happens to glance at the calendar that he realizes how much time has already passed: three months since they escaped from the menagerie. Three months since he last saw Sam, last cooked him dinner and helped him with his homework.

Dean’s been in touch with Sam via a private, password-secured chat room that they’re pretty sure John would have no idea how to get into even if he knew about it. From Sam’s brief messages, Dean knows that Sam is, at the very least, safe and healthy.

Dean goes into the downstairs office now and boots up Jody’s ancient desktop computer. When was the last time he talked to Sam? A few days ago? Last week? The days blur together… he can’t remember. A cold fist clenches his heart.

He logs into the chat room and types out a message.

**DARKLIGHTER:** _Hey Sammy. Been awhile since we’ve talked. Everything okay over there?_

He waits for a few minutes, staring at the blinking cursor on the screen. No response. He checks his watch: it’s a little after 7:30. Maybe Sam will check the computer before he heads out for school. He’ll check back in a few minutes.

Dean goes to the kitchen, puts on a pot of coffee, then walks into the living room, where Cas is sprawled out on the couch, watching a House Hunters marathon. Dean walks up behind him and ruffles his hair. Cas smiles at him over the back of the couch.

Dean wanders back into the office a few minutes later, coffee in hand, to find a new message blinking on the screen.

**ANTILLES:** _Not so great. Been rough with Dad this week. Are you coming to get me soon?_

Dean’s stomach drops.

**DARKLIGHTER:** _What do you mean, not so great? What did he do?_

He waits, breathless. No response.

**DARKLIGHTER:** _Sam? What did Dad do? Are you okay?_

Nothing. Dean lets out a groan of frustration, which catches Cas’s attention from next door. He pokes his head into the room.

“Dean? What’s going on?”

Dean gestures at the computer screen. Cas reads the exchange, frowning. “You know,” he says slowly, “I’ve been thinking a lot about Sam lately. I was going to bring it up with you soon, that I think it’s time to go back for him.”

“It’s definitely time,” Dean agrees. “We gotta go as soon as possible.”

“Dean,” Cas says, his voice tentative. “Is it possible that this message came from your father? That he’s trying to trick us into coming back?”

Dean thinks about it. He wouldn’t put it past John to use Sam as bait to recapture Cas, but he hadn’t expected John to figure out how he and Sam were communicating. It has been three months, though, and judging from Sam’s latest messages, John’s been getting increasingly desperate.

“We go in expecting a trap,” he tells Cas. “If it really was just Sam, and my dad isn’t expecting us, then great. In and out. If it is my dad… well, at least we’ll be prepared.”

* * *

Deep in the woods half a mile from the ranch, Dean cuts the Impala’s engine and the lights. “Remember the plan,” he says to Cas, who’s seated beside him, his grim face swathed in shadows. “I’ll go in, get Sam, meet you back here. If I’m gone more than thirty minutes—and only if I’m gone for more than thirty minutes—you come in after me. Got it?”

“I still don’t like it,” Castiel grumbles. “I think I should go in first, and you—”

“Babe, we’ve talked about this,” Dean sighs. And so they have, at least a dozen times on the car ride up here. “He’s expecting you, he wants _you_. Any traps or sigils he puts around won’t affect me. And anyway, he won’t hurt me. I’m his son.”

“Are you sure about that?” Cas asks darkly. Dean’s heart clenches. No, he isn’t sure. He loves his father, but a man who imprisons and tortures can never be fully trusted. If John is immune to the impassioned sobs of a teenage vampire, who’s to say he’ll spare his own son? But Dean can’t think about that. He knows, at the very least, that John would never hurt Sam, knows that as surely as he knows that he himself would rather die than let Sam get hurt.

“I’ll be fine,” he says for the umpteenth time, trying his very best to sound like he means it. He reaches over and squeezes Castiel’s hand. “I’ll see you in half an hour, okay?” Cas leans over and kisses him, hard and deep, but then Dean is opening the door, and stepping out of the car, and disappearing into the utter blackness of the trees. He doesn’t look back.

The ranch is dark. Even the floodlights that usually illuminate the menagerie are switched off. Everything is quiet, still. A shiver runs up Dean’s spine. He makes his way to the back door and fumbles with his keys. He figured it was a long shot that John wouldn’t have changed the locks by now, but the lock clicks smoothly, and the door opens instantly beneath Dean’s hand. His breath hitching, Dean steps into the dark kitchen.

Navigating by touch and memory, he feels his way into the living room and up the stairs. With every creak of the floorboards, every shaky breath, every pounding heartbeat, Dean expects John to leap out of the shadows at him. But he reaches the door of Sam’s room unscathed.

Just as he’s turning the doorknob, Dean hears a muffled shout from somewhere in the house. He looks up, his heart pounding in his ears. The person shouts again. Dean’s heart skips a beat as he recognizes the voice: it’s Sam.

Before he can back up, a hand closes over his wrist in a vice-like grip and yanks him roughly into the bedroom. Lights flare on the walls and Dean squints up into the furious face of his father.

“Hey, Dad,” he chokes out.

Something wet touches his face, a sickly sweet scent fills Dean’s nostrils, and he sinks into oblivion.

* * *

Dean comes to slowly, his brain in a fog. As his surroundings come into focus, he realizes that he’s in his own bedroom, his wrists and ankles tied to his desk chair. A few feet to his right, John Winchester is sitting on his bed, flipping through a magazine.

“Oh, good,” John says, setting it aside. “You’re awake. Welcome home, son.”

Dean blinks at him. “Yeah, great to be back,” he says dryly.

“Where’s that angel of yours?” John asks without preamble. “Did it take off the moment it was feeling better? Leave you behind without a second glance?”

“You know he didn’t,” Dean says, “or else I wouldn’t be tied to my own fucking chair right now.” He clenches his fists, but the ropes won’t budge. “Where’s Sam?” he demands.

John’s face is unreadable. “Your brother is fine.”

“I want to see him,” Dean insists. “Where is he? Where are you keeping him?”

John raises his voice. “Sam? Can you come in here please?”

Sam pads into the room, a distraught expression on his young face. “Dean, I’m so sorry,” he says miserably. “I tried—”

“It’s okay, Sammy,” Dean reassures him. “I’m not mad. I’m just happy you’re okay.” He turns to his father. “You’re wasting your time, Dad. He won’t come for me. I told him—”

He’s interrupted by the breaking of glass and the whooshing of wings, as Castiel swoops through the window and lands squarely on the floor of Dean’s bedroom. “Son of a bitch,” Dean bites out. “I said thirty minutes, Cas!”

“It’s been thirty-two,” Cas says coolly, “and from the looks of it, things did not go your way.”

Before Dean can make a response, a deafening shot rings out. Dean flinches. Sam screams. Castiel looks down at his chest, which is unmarked: the bullet glanced right off of him. John is standing beside the bed, raising his shotgun to take another shot—

Castiel cocks his head to the side, as though curious. Then he steps forward, all power and grace, and knocks the shotgun from John’s hands. In another fluid moment, his hand is around John’s neck and he’s holding him up against the wall, John’s feet dangling inches above the floor.

Sam runs around to Dean’s side and starts frantically untying the ropes binding him to the chair. “How?” John splutters, his face turning blue.

“I’m stronger than when we last met,” Castiel answers, his eyes burning. “You can thank your son for that.”

“Cas!” Dean shouts, one hand now free. He reaches out to the angel. “Cas, put him down!”

“He chloroformed you, Dean,” Cas says without turning around. “He tied you to a chair. His own son!”

“I know,” Dean says. “He’s done a lot of bad things, Cas, but that doesn’t mean he deserves to die. Cas, please. You’re not one of them, remember? Not a monster. Don’t be a monster, Cas, please. Let him go.”

Castiel’s grip loosens, allowing John to slide down just a little—his feet touch the floor—but he doesn’t let go. Sam succeeds in untying the last of Dean’s bonds, and Dean gets to his feet. “Cas,” he murmurs, stepping towards him. “Look at his soul. Maybe it’s not pure, not perfect, but it’s redeemable, isn’t it? Not all the way gone?”

Castiel frowns. John flinches away from him, away from the intensity of Castiel’s burning blue gaze. Finally Castiel lets his hand fall to his side. John dissolves into a coughing fit, clutching his throat.

Cas steps back and Dean hugs him. “Thank you,” he whispers into Cas’s ear.

“You were right,” Cas says, taking Dean’s hand as they turn back to look at John. “There is still good in him. In time... perhaps... he can be redeemed.” Sam comes around to Dean’s other side and Dean puts an arm around him.

“Dad,” Dean says gently, “listen to me.” John looks up, his face finally defeated. “We’re taking Sam now,” Dean continues, “and we’re going to free the monsters in the menagerie.” Beside him, Castiel stirs with surprise.

“They’ll have a choice.” Dean’s speaking to both Cas and his father now. “They can go back to their old ways—and if they hurt another human, Cas will know, and we’ll take them out—or they can start fresh. Feed off animals or blood bags or whatever, and we’ll let them be. Their choice.”

John laughs harshly. “You’re making a mistake, son,” he says.

“Maybe so,” Dean agrees. “I’m giving you the same choice, Dad. Go back to your old ways, and you’ll never see Sam or me again. Start fresh... and who knows.” He shrugs. “Maybe we can be a family again someday.”

They leave John in Dean’s bedroom, red-faced and seething. “Do you think he can really change?” Cas asks Dean quietly much later as they’re sitting in the Impala, wending their way back towards Jody’s house, towards home.

Dean glances in the rearview mirror. Sam is asleep in the backseat, passed out with his mouth wide open. “I don’t know,” he says with a sigh. “I hope so.” Dean turns up the radio (a Zeppelin song is playing) and Castiel puts a hand on his thigh.

Together, they look out the windshield to the horizon. The sun begins to rise.


	6. Epilogue

The house that Dean shares with the angel Castiel is small and yellow. John hesitates in front of the gate, looking over the picket fence at the vegetable garden, the dogwood tree towering over the front walk, the Impala parked in the driveway.

Dean opens the door a moment after he knocks. John hasn’t seen his son in over a year. He looks young and bright, and lighter than John can ever remember seeing him. He’s happy, John realizes with a jolt.

Dean shakes his hand formally and hangs his coat up in the hall closet. “Come on in, Dad,” he says, and leads John into a sun-filled kitchen. Sam is sitting at the kitchen island, doodling something. He jumps up when he sees his father and runs to hug him.

Sam must be a foot taller than the last time John saw him, and his hair is practically shoulder-length. “It’s good to see you, Sammy,” John says hoarsely.

“You, too,” Sam says, smiling brightly at him. “I’ll go get my stuff.”

He dashes out of the room. John looks up, his eyes narrowing. The angel is standing beside the stove with his arms crossed, watching John carefully through a pair of glasses. “Can I get you some coffee?” Castiel asks curtly.

John nods, and Castiel turns back to the counter, busying himself with the coffeemaker. “What’s with the glasses?” John says to Dean as he enters the kitchen behind him.

“He needs them,” Dean says, shrugging. “Turns out human Cas is nearsighted. Took us awhile to figure out, though. He thought he was going blind at first.”

“Human?” John repeats.

“Yeah, Cas gave up his grace,” Dean explains. Castiel hands a cup of coffee to John, then moves to stand beside Dean, still eyeing John distrustfully.

“We still have it, though” Castiel says. “So don’t get any ideas.” He puts an arm around Dean’s waist. John tries not to wince.

“Didn’t you say you took out a whole pack of werewolves last month, just the two of you?” John asks.

“Yeah,” says Dean. “We did.”

“But how—?”

“Cas is still Cas, powered up or not,” Dean says. “Also he’s learning judo.”

As he waits for Sam and sips his coffee, John learns about his son’s new life. Dean is working as a mechanic and taking online classes. Castiel has a part-time job as a substitute teacher, and is getting his bachelor’s. “Major in English Lit, minor in Religious Studies,” Dean says.

John raises an eyebrow, and Castiel shrugs.

“I couldn’t resist,” he says.

Sam finally reappears at the base of the stairs, towing a massive suitcase.

“You’re only staying for a week, kiddo,” John says, chuckling.

“They gave us so much homework,” Sam says, dropping the suitcase on the floor with a thud. “It’s like the teachers don’t even know it’s spring break!”

He hugs his brother and Castiel goodbye, and Castiel drags his suitcase down the hallway. John starts to follow, but Dean puts a hand on his chest, holding him back. “I’m putting a lot of trust in you,” Dean says. “Anything goes wrong, anything happens to Sammy—”

“He’s my son, Dean.”

“Yeah, well, so am I.”

They stare at each other for a few moments, Dean’s fierce gaze boring into John. Then Dean drops his hand and steps aside. “See you both in a week.”

John and Dean walk outside together, blinking in the sunshine. “Dean…” John hesitates. “You look happy.”

“We are happy.”

“I’m… I’m glad to see that.” Dean seems to know the effort it cost John to say that. He touches his father’s arm, just for a moment.

“So what are we gonna do this week?” Sam asks, buckling his seatbelt. John smiles at his youngest son.

“Well,” he says, starting the ignition. “I got a couple horses. You wanna help me out with them?”

Sam can barely contain his glee. Over his head, John can see Dean and Castiel standing in their yard, hand in hand. He raises a hand and gives a little wave, just before he pulls away from the curb.

Both of them wave back.


End file.
